This project uses text analysis to examine evidence collected for the 1936 Mui Tsai Investigation. The interviews and memorandum that comprise this material was part of the British Empire’s attempt to address a longstanding debate concerning the mui tsai institution in British Hong Kong and Malaya. The Mui Tsai institution placed young girls in what Chinese families viewed as adoption and household duties and what European activists viewed as trafficking and slavery. International uproar and debate stemmed from this disagreement of definitions and appropriate regulatory measures. In this project, I use methods such as topic modeling and sentiment analysis to conduct text analysis with R on a random selection of this material to shed light on the investigation process. This analysis uncovers insights such as biases in interview questioning and how witnesses’ overall sentiments towards the mui tsai institution were influenced by their geo-cultural origins and experiences. Together, these findings contribute to our understanding of the British Empire during a period of imperial decline: how it navigated intercultural tension and international standard-setting, and how the process of colonial knowledge construction shifted accordingly. Further, the findings of this project hold great potential for public humanities engagement. Throughout the processes of data creation and text wrangling, this project creates digital social knowledge that can be used to foster greater learning and exploration of the intercultural differences that convolute contemporary debates of trafficking, slavery and their regulation. While this project creates its own interpretations, it also provides a foundation that invites further work.

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